DVD Shopping Bag: Iron Man 3 Blu-ray (Mania.com)

By:Robert T. Trate Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2013Source: Mania.com

When last summer began, I was really at a fever pitch for Iron Man 3 and not because I was a huge Iron Man fan (movie or comic). In fact, I didn’t really love the first one or the second. I appreciated what Robert Downey Jr. brought to the role, but the movies were single viewings for me. With that said, I still can’t see anyone else playing the part. So, where did the fever pitch lie? I would like to say that it all came down to post The Avengers hype, but it didn’t. It was the pure and simple desire to see if Shane Black and RDJ (what I call Robert Downey Jr.) could pull off a third act and a fourth story for the Armored Avenger.

SPOILERS for IRON MAN 3

“Third Time’s a Charm”. This term might be true for some things, but rarely for movies. The Empire Strikes Back, The Bride of Frankenstein, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and The Dark Knight are all proof that the second film is as good as it gets. With all eyes on a new director and a post Avengers adventure, could Marvel pull it off? For this film aficionado and comic book collector, they did and the proof is in the pudding.

A Kid Friendly Story

When a third film arrives, it usually has a different audience from the first one. I’m not saying that the first Iron Man didn’t have its fair share of toys. It’s just that by the third film, they really are hooking in the kids and the next generation to keep the franchise going. How do they do this? Well, Hollywood likes to involve some sort of kid in the story. Need proof? Let us try and remember the nightmares that are Rambo III and The Mummy: Tomb of The Dragon Emperor. So what did Shane Black and Drew Pearce do in Iron Man 3? They added a kid. The twist is that Tony Stark treats him as an equal. His back and fourth is no different than it was with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) or Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in The Avengers, thus removing all the cheesy and “over the top” moments that are both cliche and insulting to a modern audience. The best part of the relationship between RDJ and Ty Simpkins is that it shows how kids would want to be treated by their heros.

The Villain and His Puppet

I’m sorry, die hard Mandarin fans, if there are any out there, but Sir Ben Kingsley nailed it. What is even better is that, like the EXTREMIS formula, Tony Stark had the Mandarin all figured out. Watch the film again and you’ll see that Stark nails it with one of his rants while trying to piece together who and what the Mandarin is. What really tipped me off was the prevalence of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) in so many of posters and ads. When the “wag the dog” moments started to unravel, I absolutely loved it. Despite spending the majority of the Spring wondering if Benedict Cumberbatch was Khan or not, none of us wondered if Kingsley was really the Mandarin. Awesome!

Bigger, More, and Then What?

My problem with the ending of the first Iron Man is that he fought a bigger version of himself for the finale. I’m sorry, but that was extremely predictable. In the second film, he teams up with War Machine, but the big finale is Stark and Rhodes taking on an army of Iron Man type robots. Where is the danger or the surprise in that? Upping the ante in this matter is the doom of films and their sequels. Take a look at Major League 2 (if you will). Every joke is the same old rehash of the one before. Only this time, it is bigger. That is why that sequel is better left forgotten. The appeal to the Iron Man character, both on screen and in the comics, is how this man of science deals with other problems. I was hoping that the Mandarin was going to use magic against Tony Stark. With the introduction of Thor into the Marvel Movie Universe, magic (or other dimensional science) has been explained. The finale in Iron Man 3 pits Stark against his greatest challenge, himself. Throughout the film, he is riddled with insecurities. Aldrich Killian would have been no problem for the Avengers. For Tony Stark, a man who doubted not only himself, but his ability to protect his loved one, it was something else.

As the summer of 2013 progressed, I kept hoping for that same feeling of something different and better with the summer movies as we got bogged down in the Into Darkness/ Wrath of Khan debate. We then switched gears and found ourselves divided between a Superman who kills and one who doesn’t. That debate, I think, can be salvaged in the Man of Steel sequel. Further and further the summer went on, and yet no other film left me as satisfied as Iron Man 3. It was the most fun this critic and film aficionado had at the movies. Why? Because it dared to be a little different.